


10 PM

by jaythewriter



Series: Misplaced Attachments [12]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Coffee, M/M, Misplaced Attachments, Multi, Pretentious Hipster, coffee shop date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That feel when your other boyfriend's mom is outraged to hear you're planning to have her son home at a reasonable time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 PM

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Misplaced Attachments, of course. CW for food.

Tim said it as a joke: “We’ll have him home by ten. Don’t worry about Alex, Ms. Kralie.”

And she erupted-- not in anger, no, Christina doesn’t get angry, not with ‘her boys’ as she likes to call them. She did jump up, though, eyes huge, her trashy romance novel all but forgotten about upon the dining table.

“Are you serious? What kind of boring date are you taking my baby on that you’ll only be back by ten?”

Jay jumped beside him, Tim remembers that-- he jerked back, took a step to the left as though attempting to hide behind him. Not one of Jay’s smartest ideas when Tim is most definitely shorter than him.

“We… were going out to an early movie and calling it a night after that?” Tim said, and before either he or Jay could stop her, Christina was bringing out her wallet, digging it out of her back jeans pocket and picking out a twenty. “Ms. Kralie, please--”

“/Christina/, I haven’t been a Miss since I was fuckin’ fifteen,” she interrupted, stern and firm as ever. She shoved the money into Tim’s pockets, turned him around, and pushed him at the front door. “Now you go meet Alex up in that car and tell him you’re taking him clubbing. There’s a new place downtown, it’s safe there to be yourselves. You two keep a close eye on him, alright? Now go!”

And here they are now, not in that club, not in any sort of club. This couldn’t be any further from downtown. Not a single neon light in sight, no click of high heels on the sidewalk, no intoxicated voices shouting vulgarities from passing cars making the trek home. 

No; instead they’ve found the sole coffee shop that’s open at this hour, and much to their surprise, it’s actually busy enough that they’ve been pushed outside to the umbrella-toting tables. 

“So, wait,” Alex says over his black drink. He nurses it, hiding the ginger face he pulls after each sip inside his sleeve. Jay continues to push the five packets of sweetener he snatched from the inside of the shop toward him, in the foolish hopes that Alex might swallow his pride and take them. “Mom wanted you guys to take me to a club. A gay club, it sounds like. A place that would be known for its drinking.”

“Now to be fair!” Jay interrupts, raising his mocha from the table. “She did say that we should keep an eye on you. I think that she meant for us to make sure you didn’t drink.”

“That’s what I got from it,” Tim adds on with a shrug. He still has to smile to himself, though, crooked and bordering on a smirk. “So, Alex, do you want to go out to the club? Where’ve you been hiding this partying side of you for so long?”

The man in question sighs, exasperation riding along his arms and back as he brings his head down on the glass tabletop. While he’s down, Jay seizes the window of opportunity and drags his paper cup across to himself, adding two packets of Splenda while Alex is down and out. Surely Alex notices the changes being made to his drink, but he either doesn’t care or doesn’t mind. 

“She thinks I’m still that ridiculous college kid that was always sending her drunk ‘I love you and miss you’ texts. Last I checked she has photos from my old Facebook saved to her computer. You guys remember all those pictures, right?”

Jay and Tim exchange looks. They do remember, vividly. It’s hard not to when they were often the ones back in their bedrooms during those long nights, checking up on social media to see what their more extroverted friends were getting up to. 

It’s a stereotype, and by God, did Alex fill it out, through and through. He was the one with a constant beer in hand to keep him company and a table beneath his two dancing feet, one of which was missing a shoe that would inevitably show up the next day. Hungover and partied out Alex was a milder, grumpier Alex, and unfortunately, that was the Alex that Tim and Jay had to work with for Marble Hornets.

(No wonder neither of them noticed something was off when Alex started to yell and throw scripts at them. Oh, Alex is being a dick? Big deal, he’ll pop an aspirin and wash it down with a gallon of coffee, he’ll be fine in an hour or so.)

(Jay squirms in his chair, clutching his cup with hands that shake from guilt. Tim’s hand appears upon his wrist, coaxing him to sit still.)

“From what I can tell, your mom’s just trying to get us to appeal to what she thinks are your interests,” Tim explains, calm as could be. “She’s not trying to embarrass you. I think it’s cool.”

“Putting more effort into it than mine ever did,” Jay chimes in using a casual tone unbefitting of his harsh words. Tim utters a noise of understanding; his mother might’ve tried, but, a grown-up Tim can tell that she could’ve tried /way/ harder. Hospitalization or no hospitalization.

Alex finishes off his coffee while his boyfriends speak, peering at them from over his glasses and frowning. He brings the mug down to the tabletop and shakes his head, hair in desperate need of a trim whipping his cheeks. 

“Guess I gotta actually /talk/ to her and tell her about the new me. New me, better interests. If I may say, a more sophisticated me.”

He speaks as though it’s his duty to the world to bring taste and proper beauty to it, and meanwhile Jay is going to drown in his own drink if Tim doesn’t shut Alex up. The oh so sophisticated one yelps as Tim’s foot crashes into his shin beneath the table. Jay’s sputtered cries join Alex’s when Tim whacks him on the back to free the blockage in his throat.

“I’d tell you that you’re more you than ever but I don’t think you’re self-aware enough to understand that,” Tim points out to Alex, and, predictably, the other man stands up and demands an explanation, quick to take insult. 

Jay recovers in time from his coughing to giggle at the sight of Alex’s righteous fury, which nowadays is about as threatening as a furiously barking Chihuahua. 

It’s something Tim never expected Jay to be laughing at. 

(Tim never thought he’d be thinking that Alex being ‘more him’, more inherently Alex, was a good thing.)

(But it is. This is Alex, a calmer and less likely to rip his shirt off when in a crowded and rowdy place Alex, but it’s Alex Kralie.)

Alex is still ranting at him a moment later, calling him the worst instigator this side of Alabama.

Tim smiles into his hot chocolate.


End file.
